Sunday morning, Skye is sleeping peacefully in my bed. Another four weeks have gone by. Four weeks—not a month. When a woman is pregnant, everything is measured in weeks. Today, Skye is eight weeks pregnant. She doesn't have a baby bump yet. There's a softness to her belly, though, hinting that something has changed.

And things have changed. She's tired most days, and naps after we get home from the office. Then she always, always goes to have dinner with her sister. Even if I plan to take her out for a date afterward, she goes to sit on the couch with Robin. 

At least some of the stress of their lives has been mitigated by moving into my building. I promised Skye that they'd be able to live here no matter how things shook out with our deal. Now I wonder if I'll even want to live here when the baby is born.

With every day that passes, I feel more protective of her, more concerned with everything she does. 

Not that I'm worried about her ability to take care of herself. She was doing pretty well for herself, I understand, until she had some trouble with an ex. Until things got difficult with her sister. Those things aren't her fault.

I lean down and kiss her on the cheek. “I have to go, sweetheart.”

She turns sleepily toward me, her eyes still closed. “Where?”

“A meeting.”

A look of confusion crosses her face. “Is it a workday?”

“No, it's still Sunday, but I didn't have room in my schedule any other time.” I kiss her again and my cock jumps to attention. “You can go back to sleep, if you want.”

She opens one eye, hearing the invitation in my voice. 

“Or?”

“Or you could let me...” I put my hand on her shoulder and run it down to her wrist, wrapping my hand around the delicate bones there before sliding it around to the front of her belly and down into her panties. “Give you a little something first.”

I don't have time to fuck her—at least not the way I want to, which would consume the rest of the morning—but I'll be damned if I leave her without a parting gift.

It only takes a few minutes, kissing on her neck, my fingers circling her clit, before Skye comes on my fingers, pink lips parted with a low moan that makes me want to cancel this meeting altogether.

But Peter Cunningham says he has important information for me about Hunter Housing. It seems like a fucking joke, really, that he would even have information that I don't, but I don't want to take the chance. 

The stakes are a lot higher now.

I pull up the blankets and tuck Skye in. She's already dozing back off.

“I'll see you when I get home.”

“I love you,” she murmurs, and then her entire body goes tense, her eyes flying open. “Matthew—oh my God, I—”

“It's okay.” I'm flooded with a warmth I never thought I'd feel—not after Afghanistan, not after the way it destroyed my body and my mind, at least for a little while. “Don't apologize.” I take a deep breath. No matter what might happen later, I love her in this moment, this woman carrying my child, this woman who trusts me more than anyone else in the world. “I love you, too.”

* * *

I ride the high of Skye’s words all the way to the dive bar across town, where I’ve agreed to meet Peter Cunningham. Something about his name makes my lip curl, but I’ve never met the man.

Maybe I just resent him for trying to interrupt Skye and me in the office—has it actually been four weeks now? He’s been trying to get on my schedule, but he hasn’t come back to the Hunter Housing building and I have no idea why.

Finally I agreed to meet him on a Sunday. It wasn’t until this week that he decided to let me know about the information he’s holding on to, which makes me suspicious. But it’s a good thing to know what people are saying, at least. If this asshole is trying to blackmail me, that’s another story. I’m just not sure what he’d have that he could use to blackmail me. I used to be in the Army. I’m out. I’ve never killed anyone, and I don’t have any dark secrets to hide. 

I just want to get back to Skye. The thought of her saying those words—I love you—is making my head spin. I didn’t plan to say it back to her. I didn’t plan to fall in love with her. But over the past few weeks, the feeling in my chest has grown with every passing minute. 

At the Headbanger—God, what a stupid name for a bar—I slide into the last booth on the left. I haven’t been sitting there five seconds when a waitress comes by and drops off a basket of popcorn, fresh from the popper. “Something to drink?”

“A beer. Whatever comes to hand first.”

She gives me a flirtatious smile, but it makes no impact. I might have looked twice at her before Skye. Not anymore. “I’ll be right back with that, Mister.”

The moment she’s gone, I get lost in thought. If this thing between Skye and me is real—and I think it might be—then we can’t live in my apartment forever. I don’t want to live in an apartment with a wife and child. I want a house with a backyard, and a tire swing hanging from the thick bough of a tree. My penthouse apartment might be the nicest one in the building, but a communal parking lot isn’t exactly the backyard of my dreams. 

A shadow passes by my elbow, and I think it must be the waitress, but instead a man slides into the booth across from me. He’s redheaded and lanky, with a shifty look in his eyes. “I’m Peter Cunningham,” he says, without preamble.

“You’ve been trying to meet with me for weeks,” I say, leaning back in the booth, watching him. He’s not carrying an envelope. He must have been fucking with me. “What do you have to say that’s so important?”

He takes a deep breath and lets it out, eyes darting around like someone might be listening in. “I have to warn you about someone in your organization.”

I have to stop myself from rolling my eyes. Who the hell could he possibly be talking about? I don't care. This is a waste of time. He's not the first person to “warn” me about someone in order to get something out of me. I start to get up. “This was a mistake. Goodbye.”

“Skye Dawson,” he says quickly. “I have to warn you about her. She'll ruin your life, Mr. Hunter. Believe me. I know.”